The Adventures of Jimmy Halpert
by MoonshoesWeasley
Summary: One day, while riding his bike through the forest, mild mannered paper salesman Jim Halpert is bitten by a radioactive bear and becomes 'Bear Man.' At least, that's the story we've been told. Ever wonder what Ireally/happened? This story will contain some non-graphic descriptions of violence and an off screen death. Appropriate chapters will be marked for content.
1. Origin

"So, tell me again why a mountain biking weekend requires you to take off half a day on Thursday and a whole day Friday?"

"Pam, we've been over this. It's almost a four hour drive." Jim Halpert set his messenger bag on the top of the reception desk and smiled down at Pam. He fished around in her candy dish for a cherry flavored Jolly Rancher, but the bowl had been picked clean and all that remained were gross ones like watermelon. "Yuck. What do you do with all the leftover flavors that nobody eats?"

"Dwight takes all the green apple. I think he gives them to his cousin? I don't ask. Anyway, you're pretty much the only one that comes up here and gets any at all."

"You should get something universally liked. Jellybeans, for example."

Pam rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah, okay, Mr. Candy Connoisseur. Where are you going again?"

Jim found a lone grape flavored candy buried at the bottom and grinned at Pam triumphantly as he popped it in his mouth. "The Allegrippis Trails out in Huntingdon. Should be fun. Some buddies I haven't seen in a few years will be there."

Pam pressed her lips together and turned her nose up at him. "Well. I hope it's worth leaving me here by myself. Angela has a new cat and Dwight won't shut up about show Firefly being canceled, so. Between the two of them I won't get any work done."

He laughed. "Yeah, your minesweeper games will have to play themselves, huh?"

The hard line of her lips quirked up into grin. "I'll have you know that I've moved onto solitaire."

"Nice. Well hey, have a good weekend. See you Monday?"

"Sure. Have fun! Don't break a leg or anything."

"I'll try, just for you. Bye, Pam." He held up his hand in a wave as he headed towards the main office door. Before he walked left he looked back at Pam and was pleased to see that she was looking at him, too. The last thing he saw as he left work at just past 1:00 on a Thursday afternoon was Pam Beesly smiling and waving at him from behind the reception desk.

The next time he sees her, his life will have been changed forever.

* * *

"Hey, Halpert! Long time no see!" Jim is nearly yanked from his car by a short, stocky man who immediately crushed him in a one arm hug.

Jim managed to squeeze out a greeting as his college buddy Zach thumped him on the back. "Hey, Zach. How've you been?"

"Great, man, great! Hey, guys, Jim made it!"

Jim greeted his old friends Alec and Matthew and caught up on life after college as he set up his tent and hauled gear out of the back of his car.

"Alec, how's veterinary school?"

"It's great. Actually, no, it's pretty hard. But I love it, I really do. Can't wait to be done, though."

"Nice! How about you, Matthew, sales treating you right?"

"Can't complain. Being a pharm rep is where it's at, man. How bout you? Sales game good up in Scranton?"

"Ah, you know. I'm making it. It's a good stepping stone until I find something better. My boss is pretty wild and I've got a pretty crazy coworker, but some of the people there are cool." He's thinking of Pam when he says it, of her somewhat untamed curly red hair and her green eyes and the way she tilts her head all the way back when she laughs at one of his pranks or at one of the dumb jokes he makes. Something he very decidedly is not thinking about is the diamond ring on her left hand.

"Hey, Jim, come help me get some firewood. And I'm drinking one of your beers since I helped you get your tent set up."

"I'm drinking one of yours, then, since I have to help your lazy ass pick up sticks in the woods."

After that, the weekend got good and started and Jim didn't think about Dunder Mifflin or anyone working there again.

Well, that wasn't quite true, but thoughts of Pam don't count.

* * *

The foursome spend almost all day Friday and Saturday on the mountain biking trails. Jim is the least experienced of his friends but they're pretty good about letting him play catch up and by noon on Saturday he thought he'd improved significantly. He decided to head back to camp early on Saturday, though, and left the group to bike without worrying about him slowing them down.

He spent Saturday afternoon next to Raystown Lake with a paperback that he'd been intending to read on his lap, forgotten. Instead, he looked out at the water and compared his life to that of his friends. Veterinary school, pharmaceutical sales, and learning to take over a family business all sounded a lot better than junior salesman at a midrange paper supply company. Plus, they all had a lot more going in the way of romantic prospects. Jim's luck in that department was pretty dismal, considering that he was more than slightly enamored with a girl that was soundly spoken for. He made a few honest attempts to read his book, but his thoughts kept drifting back to pale skin and striped button downs and a hair barrette that he'd been dying to unclip since the day he saw it, so that he could run his hands through the hair that it held back.

* * *

They woke up early on Sunday morning. All but Jim were exhausted and sore from two full days of biking and packed up their campsite to head home. Jim, however, having had extra time to recuperate, decided to hike a nearby trail that had caught his interest in the planning stages of this trip.

"Halpert, you sure about that? 1,000 Steps isn't a short trail. Or an easy one. And aren't you beat?"

"I didn't bike myself to death like you three. I'll be fine. Hey, keep me in the loop on when you guys want to head out here again. I definitely want to come back."

"Sure thing, man. Hey, have fun, alright?"

A short while later, Jim pulled into the trailhead of the historic 1,000 Steps trail. It was less busy than he'd imagine for a Sunday morning and he went several long stretches without seeing another hiker. He enjoyed being out in nature, alone with his thoughts, and took his time to reach the summit. After a brief rest during which he took in the spectacular views (and took a few photos on his digital camera, because he thought that Pam might like to paint them), he headed down the trail so that he could hear back home

He wasn't far from the trailhead when he heard the commotion. Something was crashing through the woods just head of him, something big. He froze in place as he debated on whether or not he should run back up the trail, but whatever it is that was stumbling through the underbrush suddenly careened onto the path and made up his mind for him.

It was a bear. A big one. And it was headed straight towards him.

Surprised would have been an understatement. Jim took a few steps back in an attempt to get away, but the path was rocky and he fell backwards onto his elbows. The bear took a few lumbering strides towards him and made a low sound, almost like a distressed moan. Jim had a fleeting thought that it looked sick or drugged or something, and then ceased to think anything other than "holy shit" as the bear fell forward.

Jim jerked his leg away quick enough to not have it crushed by the weight of the bear but not quick enough to escape injury. The bears mouth grazed against his shin and he felt the sharp pain of a cut in the skin. He clamped his hand around it and scrambled away from the bear, now seemingly unconscious in the middle of the trail, as fast as he could. He only stopped moving when he felt the trunk of a tree against his back, and only then did he realize that something else was moving in the woods from the same direction as the bear.

"Look it came, this way!" A voice he didn't recognize rang out and after a few more seconds, three men burst onto the path. They were dressed in what strongly resembled army fatigues, at least to Jim, and two of them were carrying long barreled tranquilizer guns. Jim stared at them, almost as shocked to see them as he had been shocked to see the bear.

They looked shocked to see him, too, but quickly recovered. Two of them descended on the bear. The third headed towards Jim. "Hey. What's your name?"

"Jim. Uh, Jim Halpert."

"Jim, you alright?"

"Yeah, I think. It just scared the shit out of me. Is it-is it okay, though?"

"He's fine. He...we have a rehabilitation program not far from here. He got out during a transfer from another facility and we've been tracking him almost all morning. Fast son of a bitch. But he's fine, just a tranq or two." Jim looked past the man talking to him and was relieved to see that the bear was still breathing. It looked peaceful, almost kind of cute. The two men kneeling with it were on walkie talkies and doing what Jim assumed was a field examination. Jim watched them for a moment, curious, before the man checking on him cleared his throat and motioned to Jim's leg, where Jim still had his hand against the cut that was now bleeding through his fingers. "You're bleeding. Did it get you?"

The look on the man's face was serious. Harsh even. "Uh, no. I scraped it on a rock when I was trying to get away. Banged my elbows up, too, look." If someone had asked Jim later why he'd lied, he probably would have said that it was because of the man's expression, but the truth is he had no idea why he lied. It just seemed like the right thing to do, like everyone would be better off if he just fibbed a little.

"We have some first aid stuff. Hey, Stephens, this guy got cut up."

The man named Stephens checked Jim's leg. Stephens dug around in a backpack and produced antiseptic, antibiotic cream, gauze, and a roll of bandage material. "Elbows okay? Need me to check them, too?" Jim shook his head and Stephens got to work dressing the cut on his leg. "This should be good to get you back down, but you might have it checked out. It could need stitches." Jim nodded obediently and stood up to leave, more ready than ever to be out of there and back in Scranton.

"Listen." The third man reached out and grabbed Jim's arm. "We'd appreciate your discretion with this matter. Can we count on that?"

Jim shifted nervously back and forth. The cut on his leg throbbed a little. "Um, okay. Why? He just got loose, right?"

"It wouldn't be good publicity for the rehabilitation program we're involved with. We'll do a press release after we get him back and make sure he's safe. We just like to be able to control the story. Understand, Jim?"

"Sure. No problem. Thanks for the bandages." He surveyed the scene one last time: the bear, prone on the path and breathing deeply. The two men examining it, their eyes focused on their task as they checked its paws and gums and eyes. The third man, the one that wouldn't let him leave, who was looking at him with that same serious expression. He felt like he needed to say something but he wasn't sure what, so he just waved like an idiot and hurried down the path.

He walked for another thirty minutes before he rounded the bend and saw his car. Once it was in sight he started jogging towards it, then broke into a flat out run. Adrenaline kept his wounds from hurting until he was a good twenty minutes away. His leg started to ache then, and even though he hadn't had any intentions of stopping until he'd gotten back to Scranton, he pulled into the parking lot of the first tiny country hospital he saw.

Six stitches, a tetanus shot, and a prescription for antibiotics later, Jim was back on the road. He made the drive back home in record time. Once home, he waved weakly to Mark and headed up the stairs to his bedroom. It was only around 6:00 in the evening, but he felt so _exhausted._ He couldn't remember ever feeling so tired. Being attacked by a bear (kind of) and getting a shakedown (of sorts) from an intimidating man in uniform must really take it out of a man. The bed looked incredibly inviting and he collapsed onto it sideways. He fell asleep almost immediately, on top of the comforter and still in his hiking clothes

He woke up a while later with a dry mouth and a foggy head. It was dark outside his window, but other than that he had no idea how long he'd been asleep. He was starving, so he'd obviously slept through dinner. A quick bite to eat, a short shower, and crawling back in bed afterwards sounded like a great idea.

On his way down the stairs, his head got foggier. It started to his vision, he realized, as the familiar surroundings of his living began to blur around the edges. He braced a hand against the wall and felt his way into the room and it's a good thing he did, because as he stepped into the living room his vision got worse. He could hear ringing in his ears,  
or his blood rushing, or maybe his own heartbeat. But it couldn't have been his heartbeat, because that would have meant that his heart rate had sped up so much that he couldn't distinguish the distinct _lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub_ sound he knew a heart beat was supposed to have. Instead, it was a constant _WHOMWHOMWHOMWHOM_ that pulsed loudly in his ears. He tried to yell for Mark, but when he opened his mouth nothing came out except a strange sound not unlike the moan he'd heard the bear make that morning. The similarity of the two sounds registered in his head but was quickly forgotten as the sudden realization that he was going to pass out hit him.

As he fell forward onto the carpeted floor of the living room and started to fade into unconsciousness, his last coherent thought was of the throbbing pain that emanated from the cut on his leg and began to spread throughout his entire body. And then, he didn't think about anything.


	2. Change

Additional disclaimer: I don't own "Spider-man" or "The Song That Never Ends." :) Enjoy!

* * *

Jim had never run so hard or so fast in his life. He was in a dense forest, so dense that he couldn't tell if it was night or day—it was just dark. It occurred to him as he ran that he didn't have on any shoes and that he was sprinting across rocks, branches, and wet leaves in his bare feet. It was only after he processed _that_ bit of information that he noticed that he didn't have on anything at all. Brambles and limbs whipped against his exposed skin leaving, cuts and scratches. It didn't matter, he couldn't even say that they hurt. Why he was running or what (who?) he was running from he couldn't say, but something primitive in the back of his brain told him that he couldn't stop. He ran from what seemed like hours, maybe days—there was no way of knowing for sure.

And then, he wasn't running anymore. He was falling, down into the blackest black he had ever seen. It went on forever, he knew that for certain. Except it didn't, because he unexpectedly hit the bottom of the hole or the chasm or whatever it was he was falling down. The ground beneath him felt soft but scratchy under his chest, like carpet, kind of. And something was insistently shaking his shoulder and making noises that sounded a lot like his name.

"—call 911 if you don't respond. Jim. _Jim!_ " Jim snapped awake just as his roommate Mark turned him from his chest to his back. "Oh shit, maybe I shouldn't have done that—fuck! God I hope his neck isn't broken—"

Jim batted away Mark's hands as he felt around on Jim's neck for a pulse. "Mark. Mark! Dude, stop!" Mark's worried face hovered above Jim and didn't immediately look relieved. "I'm fine. I don't—why am I on the floor?"

Mark scoffed. "Are you kidding me? I came downstairs this morning and found you passed out. You were dead to the world, man." Jim felt guilty because it was obvious that Mark was scared. His face was white, like all the blood had drained out of it, and his usually carefully styled hair looked like he'd shoved his hands through it with worry. "So don't ask me what you're doing on the floor because hell if I know. I walked in on this."

Jim sat up and tried to think back. He honestly didn't remember whatever it was that happened. Snippets of the night before flashed through his head, much the same way they did when he'd try to piece together memories after a night out drinking. He knew he fell asleep still in his hiking clothes and a quick glance down confirmed he was still wearing them. He remembered waking starving, so he came down to get something to eat. He...fell? Fainted? Obviously one of those things happened, but he didn't think either of them fit the ticket. There had been something else. He _knew_ there something else, it could feel it fluttering around in his brain, just out of reach.

Whatever it was, he'd have to figure it out later. Mark was ten seconds away from calling an ambulance, judging by the look on his face. Jim offered him a smile that he hoped was more convincing that it felt. "I woke up last night and came down to get something to eat. My blood sugar was probably low. Or I was dehydrated. Just a freak thing, I'm fine."

"I mean...if you say so. What if you have a concussion or something? I don't even know how to check for that."

"Man, I'm okay. Hey, what time is it? Are you gonna be late to work?"

Mark glanced at his watch. "Yeah, maybe. Look, are you sure you're okay?"

Jim nodded firmly. "Yeah. I swear. I'll take it easy today, though, call into work. My parents aren't far away, I'll get in touch with them if I start to feel weird."

Mark hesitantly stood from the position he'd been crouched in. "Positive? I don't want to come back and find you dead or something. I can take you to the ER if you need it-"

"I will try my hardest to not die in your absence." It took a little more convincing on Jim's part, but eventually Mark headed out the door followed by Jim's wholehearted reassurances that there was nothing to worry about.

Once he was alone, Jim didn't feel as confident as he'd tried to come across to Mark. Truthfully, he was terrified. It wasn't that he'd lost consciousness, it was that he couldn't remember what happened. He got off the floor and moved to sit on the edge of the couch. In an attempt to trigger some kind of memory, he leaned forward and covered his eyes with the heels of his palms. He pressed hard enough to cause little fireworks to explode against the blackness of his eyelids. It hurt a little, and that's when it hit him—his leg.

His leg had been throbbing right before he'd fainted. Maybe that was the cause, maybe the pain from the stitches and the (sort of) bite had gotten overwhelming and he couldn't handle it. He leaned over and hurriedly unraveled the gauze bandage around his calf. The wound underneath looked fine—new and ugly, of course, but fine. It didn't hurt but was tender when he tentatively pressed a finger next to it, but he figured that was normal. If the pain had been the cause of his fainting the night before, it would surely still be hurting just a few hours later, right?

As he racked his brain for more memories, he was able to recall that the throb wasn't so much _pain_ as it was just...there. He sat back against the couch cushions and talked out loud to himself in an attempt to fill in the empty spaces. "I came home. Fell asleep. Woke up because...I'd fallen asleep before the sun was even all the way down?" Trying to remember was giving him a headache. "Came downstairs to...eat?" His stomach growled so loudly that it would have been an embarrassment had someone else been around, like it was punctuating his thoughts. "Okay, yes. To eat. Passed out because of...hunger. Probably? Maybe?"

But there was a prickly, persistent little voice in the back of his mind. A voice that said _there's something you're missing. There's something bigger that's happening. Something important._ Recollections of a foggy brain and blurred vision swam in his mind and he didn't think they were related to being hungry.

Well, whatever. He was definitely hungry now, so he pushed everything aside and headed into the kitchen to finally get something to eat. He searched in the refrigerator and came up with a container of orange chicken from a few nights ago. It smelled a little off, though, so he settled on a trusted standby: ham and cheese. The first was piled high with extras of both ingredients and was gone in what seemed like seconds. The next went just as quickly, as well as two bananas and the crumbled remains of a bag of sour cream and cheddar Ruffles. He was halfway through making his third sandwich (all the while wondering _seriously what the fuck, I_ never _eat this much_ ) when the phone rang.

The clock on the microwave said 9:17. He groaned. It was probably Dwight wondering why he was late, as Dwight took it upon himself to police the employees of Dunder Mifflin in every area he could, but especially in tardiness. Jim had meant to call before nine and leave a message, but the morning had gotten away from him. He picked up the phone with a sigh and a weary sounding "hello?"

"Um, Jim? It's Pam."

He perked up immediately. "Oh, hey! Sorry, I figured it would be Dwight." He leaned against the countertop in a nonchalant way, then mentally chastised himself because Pam wouldn't be able to see. Maybe he'd _sound_ nonchalant, though, which would be a good thing. He had a habit of feeling like a middle school kid with a crush whenever he was around Pam...and that was mostly because he was harboring one. A huge one, actually, a gigantic crush on funny, smart, kind, pretty Pam. Pam with a fiancé. So—nonchalant. Emotionally detached. Relaxed and chill and not falling all over himself.

On the other end of the line, Pam giggled. He smile in spite of both himself and his attempt to keep his cool. "Well, he wanted to call. He's pretty ticked off that you left early on Thursday and aren't here yet. But then Michael had a crisis."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, he, um—" she giggled again and Jim closed his eyes and imagined that he was leaning over the reception desk, watching her cheeks get a little flushed the way they did when she got really tickled at something. Her eyes were probably sparkling, too, and that always took his breath away. _God, Jim, get a grip._ "—you know that filing cabinet in his office? The short one? Well, his jacket got stuck in the drawer and somehow the key was locked inside, too, so obviously that was Dwight's priority."

"Wait, was Michael still _in_ the jacket after it was locked in the cabinet?"

"Yep."

"He took the jacket off, right? Pam. Tell me he took the jacket off."

Pam's voice had a laugh hidden behind it and he just knew that she was ducking behind her desk and covering the mouthpiece of her phone with her hand, cardigan pulled up over her fingers. "No," she whispered, almost unable to contain her laughter. "They never thought to take him out of it!" She exhaled a chuckle, a breathy little sound that tickled his ear and made his heart skip a beat or two.

Jim laughed, too, half at the image of Michael and Dwight wrestling with a file cabinet and half at the sheer delight he felt at talking to her on the phone. "Oh, man, that sounds amazing. I hate that I missed it. Maybe I can engineer a re-enactment when I'm back tomorrow."

"So you're—are you not coming in today, then?" He thought he heard a hint of disappointment in her voice, but he was likely imagining it. She was getting married ("sometime in the winter, probably, or maybe next summer? We haven't set a date yet.") and she was nothing more than his fun work friend that made his days not so boring. Yeah, okay, he thought about her a lot and tried to do nice things for her and sometimes the memory of something she said or did would make him smile hours after the fact, but it was just a harmless crush that wasn't reciprocated and he was definitely reading too much into her tone.

"No, sorry. I meant to call, but I was starving and forgot." He glanced at the partially made sandwich on the countertop and his stomach growled. "Still am, apparently. I'm on my third ham and cheese."

"Wow. Balanced breakfast there, Jim."

He shrugged, even though she couldn't see it. "You're probably right, but they're easy to throw together. And we don't have much else, just some really awful smelling takeout. Plus, like I said: starving."

"Are you sick?"

Jim leaned against the counter, considering. He trusted Pam implicitly and if there was any one that he could tell about the bear and the men and the weird leg thing and how he just felt _different_ , it'd be her. But he stopped himself; he wanted more time to figure out what it was. If it was anything at all, even. "No. Just...tired. I hiked yesterday-" _and there was a weird bear attack?_ "-and got back kind of late and then didn't sleep very well. I just needed another day to recuperate."

"Oh." She sighed and there was no way that he imagined the disappointment this time. "Okay. It's just been so boring without you here. I'm losing my mind. Make sure you're back tomorrow, 'kay?"

A happy warmth spread through his chest at the knowledge that she _missed_ him. It was pathetic, of course, but he'd take it. "I'll be back for sure tomorrow, Beesly. Try not to let Dwight get you down too much."

"Ugh. I hate you. Hurry back, please. I even have a surprise for you when you get back." That piqued his interest. Maybe she'd broken up with Roy. Unlikely, but a man could dream, couldn't he? "I took your advice and got jellybeans for the candy dish. Tell me your favorite flavor and I'll save them for you."

 _Damn._ He recovered quickly, though-it was a long shot, anyway. "Buttered popcorn. Or cherry. You know, I'm not picky. Just no green apple."

"Ha ha. I gotta go, Dwight is glaring at me. See you first thing tomorrow?"

"Definitely. Have a good day, Pam."

He hung up the phone and finished assembling the momentarily discarded ham and cheese sandwich. Talking with Pam had eased his mind some, but he still felt like there was something going on. His leg wasn't hurting and he had no traces of the blurred vision or foggy head he'd remembered from the night before, but he just felt...not normal. Restless, maybe? He couldn't put his finger on it.

A run sounded like a nice way to get him to stop thinking about things, so he headed upstairs and quickly changed out of his clothes from the day before. As he pulled on a new shirt, he briefly wondered _has my chest always been_ that _hairy?_ but was distracted by the cut on his leg as he traded his hiking boots for running shoes. Maybe he shouldn't be running with a newly stitched laceration, but after a brief internal debate the need to not think about anything overruled any worry about his leg. If it got too bad, he'd just walk back and take a few extra strength Tylenol.

He realized after he left the house that he'd forgotten his iPod, but the sound of his shoes slapping against the asphalt provided enough of a rhythm to clear his mind. Or at least, he had hoped that it would...but it didn't. He just couldn't stop thinking about the events of the last 24 hours: the bear, the men, the fainting event, the weird feeling that he couldn't shake that something had changed; that _he_ had changed. He kept coming back to one completely out there conclusion.

Out of frustration, his pace picked up. It was stupid. He was being stupid. But he'd seen _Spiderman._ He saw Tobey Maguire transform from nerdy, glasses wearing Peter Parker into muscle bound, 20/20 vision (better, probably) Spiderman. Yeah, he hadn't had any sweating or shivering or weird flashes of skulls and spiders crawling around on DNA, but there were definitely similarities. Was it so crazy?

Yes. Yes it was. He sped up again, almost as though he were trying to outrun his thoughts. He pushed himself; ran harder than he ever had before. And then he stopped, because he realized two things. Well, one was really a memory: the dream he'd been having before Mark woke him up. The second was that he'd arrived at the intersection that was roughly a mile from his house, and much quicker than he usually did. Frustrating fainting spells and weird dreams did wonders for his mile time, apparently, because-

" _Holy shit._ " He must be losing his mind or his watch had quit working, something, because there was _no way_ that he'd run a mile in less than four minutes. And seeing as how the second hand of his watch kept ticking around, he figured that it was the former: he was going insane.

He took his time heading back home. On the way, he staunchly refused to think about anything except the lyrics to "The Song That Never Ends" and singing them over and over. Maybe if he did it for long enough, he could rid himself of the pesky intrusive thoughts that were attempting to break through the repetition and act like a battering ram against his skull.

It didn't work. In fact, it only made him more upset-angry, even. He practically stalked up the sidewalk and wrenched the front door open. That is, he tried to, but it was locked. And he didn't have his keys. Before he could stop himself, he let out a sound that could only be described as a roar and banged his fists against the door. To his complete and total surprise, the front door opened.

Rather, it fell.

Because Jim knocked it completely off its hinges.

As he stepped across the threshold and surveyed the scene before him, things suddenly didn't seem so crazy after all.


	3. Power

"Wow. You weren't kidding. So, tell me again what happened?" Jim's father Gerald Halpert stood on the tiny front porch of Jim and Mark's townhouse, toolbox in hand. He surveyed the damage done to the heavy front door and the frame with a raised eyebrow, one of the many expressions that he had passed down to his youngest son.

It wasn't the expression Jim had on at the moment, though. Instead, he had one hand shoved into the pocket of his gym shorts and the other scrubbing the back of his neck, his eyes wide in an attempt to look innocent. "Um, I don't know, really. Maybe something happened when I was out of town and Mark didn't fix it right?" He knew it was wrong of him to blame Mark for an incident that he didn't cause, but he couldn't tell his dad that he'd literally beat the door down. And since Mark wasn't here to defend himself against Jim's false accusations, that's just how it was going to be.

"Hm." Gerald inspected the broken door jamb, pulling on the loose piece of wood with his thumb and forefinger until it snapped back against the frame. "It looks like someone kicked it in or something. You sure it wasn't like this before you went for your run?"

"No. I mean, yeah, I'm sure. I don't know, Dad, I didn't really pay attention. I, uh, I left through the garage."

"Was anything stolen? Maybe we should call the police—"

"No!" Gerald looked startled at his son's vehement objection to getting law enforcement involved. Jim took a calming breath and tried to appear neutral. "No. We don't need to bother them. Nothing got stolen. Just...can you fix it?"

The older Halpert nodded in affirmation, to Jim's eternal relief. He wanted to get it taken care of before Mark got off work, because Mark would insist on involving their landlord. Jim could barely explain away what happened to his dad; there was no way he'd be able to think up a believable story for his roommate or their property manager or whoever else got involved. "I can fix it. I need some stuff from the hardware store, though. You stay here and get these hinges out, get the jamb off if you can. I'll be back in a bit."

Once Jim's father returned, the two men made relatively short work of repairing the door. After a profuse and heartfelt thanks as well as a promise to call his mother soon, Gerald Halpert was on his way. Jim knew that his dad didn't buy the explanation he'd been given about the door, but that didn't really matter. He wasn't the type of man who asked a lot of questions unless they were absolutely necessary, and he apparently didn't deem the real story of Jim's broken door that important. Jim was glad for that, and for the fact that his dad was handy with a few various power tools.

No sooner had his dad driven around the corner than Mark pulled up, evidently home for lunch. If he noticed the brand new and unpainted door jamb, he didn't mention it. Instead, he looked Jim over and gave a firm nod, apparently satisfied with what he saw. "I have to say, you look a hell of a lot better than you did this morning."

Jim stood gestured for his roommate to head into the house, before he had the chance spot any recent repairs. "Yeah? Well the same can't be said for you, man."

Mark's response was muffled due to his head being buried in the refrigerator. "Har har har. If you're making dumbass jokes, you must be back to normal." He withdrew from the fridge with a can of soda and a paper carton of leftover Chinese and settled in at the bar.

"I feel fine. You didn't have to come check on me." That was a lie; he wasn't fine. But what could he say? _So I think I passed out because something weird was happening with my DNA, like Spiderman or Bruce Banner or something, only with a bear. Oh yeah, I got bit by a bear yesterday, kind of. Anyway I ran a mile in 3:18 and beat the door down and I have a lot of chest hair now, and becoming part bear is the best explanation I can think of, outside of losing my mind._ Yeah, no, thanks—he'd lie.

Mark didn't look up from where he was busy opening his lunch and stirring it around with a fork. "I didn't. I forgot my orange chicken and didn't want your leftovers-stealing-ass to eat it."

Jim was hit with another whiff of the smell he'd gotten earlier, when he was searching the refrigerator himself. It was stronger now, with the container open and without the competing smells of other food. It was _rank,_ like garbage that had been left outside in 110 degree heat for a week. "You're gonna eat that? It smells disgusting."

Across the room, Mark gave him a quizzical look and sniffed his food. He speared a piece of chicken on his fork and popped it in his mouth, shrugging. "Smells fine to me. I thought you liked orange chicken?"

"I do, just not when it's gone bad."

"Maybe that fall messed up your sense of smell, dude." Jim didn't reply, because his mind was too busy adding another reason to his mental list of _Why I Think I Might Be Taking On Bear Attributes._ He remembered a day not that long ago where Dwight had rambled on for what seemed like forever about the "keen and acute olfactory capabilities of the _Ursus americanus,_ more commonly known as the black bear." God help him, he'd actually retained something from one of Dwight's uninvited and long-winded rants on things that only Dwight himself would be interested in...until now, that is.

He shook his head in a physical attempt to clear his mind—he couldn't think about that stuff right now. Instead, he turned on the oven and pulled a pizza out of the freezer. After a few moments of deliberation in which his stomach growled loudly, he pulled out a second.

* * *

After getting out of the shower (he was _definitely_ hairer, no question about it), he booted up his computer and pulled up Google. He didn't really know where to start, especially since a huge part of him still felt like he was being ridiculous. The cursor blinked at him in mockery, daring him to suck it up and type in his query: black bears.

"Get it together, man. It's just some research. Humor yourself. After ten minutes it'll prove that you're just being dumb." He flexed his fingers and hesitantly typed into the search bar. It was another few seconds before he was able to press enter.

As he started to peruse the list of results, an IM window popped up.

 **Receptionitis15:** Save me.

Jim smiled, his anxiety about whether or not he's becoming Bearman temporarily abated.

 **JIM9334:** that bad, huh?  
 **Receptionitis15:** You have no idea. Dwight and Michael have gone on a rampage against file cabinets.  
 **JIM9334:** ...what does that even mean?  
 **Receptionitis15:** Michael wants all the locks removed. Dwight's been trying to pry them all off. Angela is the only one really standing up to him.  
 **JIM9334:** sounds about right, haha. sorry i'm not there to help take advantage of the situation. would it help if i told you that i had something for you?  
 **Receptionitis15:** Hm. I guess I can forgive you. Whatcha up to on your extra day off?  
 **Receptionitis15:** Hold that thought. Dwight's headed this way with his multi-tool thing.  
 **JIM9445:** godspeed, beesly.

Jim stared at the computer screen with what he was sure was a goofy smile on his face. How was it that just a simple interaction with Pam calmed his worried mind? If he was being honest with himself, he knew the reason why. It just wasn't something he liked to acknowledge or think too much about. So...he didn't.

Back to the research.

The Wikipedia page for black bears provided a lot of valuable information, as did the Pennsylvania Game Commission website and . Before too long, he'd pulled up a Word document and started a list of...similarities? Proof? Something. Whatever.

 **REASONS WHY I MIGHT BE A BEAR/MAN HYBRID**

-new chest and leg hair that definitely wasn't there before. black bears very hairy, of course.  
-mile time of 3:18. internet says black bears can run 30 miles per hour  
-sense of smell seems to be sharper, mark's chinese food definitely gone bad.  
-eyesight, too, maybe?  
-really hungry. like really really hungry.  
-can't forget literally breaking the door down. obviously stronger than yesterday (and not like in that britney spears song.)

After considering his short list of evidence, he opened a new document.

 **THINGS TO TEST IN CASE I *AM* A BEAR/MAN HYBRID**

-swimming. the bear website says bears can swim well. can i swim well now? let's find out.  
-climbing. can i climb a tree like winnie the pooh? what kind of bear is he anyway, other than a silly old one? not important.  
-test strength in a way that doesn't involve doors. maybe door was already falling apart?  
-double check eyesight. overdue for eye appointment anyway.  
-talk to alec? could any of this be bad for me? probably.

Jim sat back. Calling Alec seemed like a good idea...maybe his soon-to-be-veterinarian friend could shed some light on his current predicament. He searched around for his cell phone and was scrolling through his contacts for Alec's number when Pam's IM window dinged with a new message.

 **Receptionitis15:** Ugh, sorry. That took way longer than I expected.  
 **JIM9334:** save your file cabinet?  
 **Receptionitis15:** Thankfully, yes. Toby stepped in eventually and threatened to call Jan.  
 **JIM9334:** ah, yes, the threat of jan. never fails to stop michael in his tracks. or maybe it was proximity to toby. either way, things calmed down some?  
 **Receptionitis15:** Yeah. Just in time to waste away the last hour of the workday. I'm so bored. Can't wait for you to get back.  
 **JIM9334:** yeah, me either.  
 **JIM9334:** because didn't you say something about saving all the best jellybeans for me?  
 **Receptionitis15:** Yep.  
 **Receptionitis15:** Oh, except for the ones I ate already. Which were all the buttered popcorn. And cherry. I *think* I have some green apple left...that's your favorite flavor, right?  
 **JIM9334:** i hate you.  
 **Receptionitis15:** No you don't. ;)  
 **Receptionitis15:** Gotta go. Michael's calling a conference room meeting about...I have no idea, actually. Who knows how long this'll take. See you tomorrow?  
 **JIM9334:** for sure. see you then. :)

The computer chimed as Pam signed off and Jim sat back in his chair. He was getting in way too deep. The highlights of his day were any moments he got to share with Pam, and more and more of his time away from work was spent thinking about her. He had a crush, for sure, but lately it felt more and more like he was really and truly falling. And that was bad, because it couldn't happen. He chastised himself— _stop thinking about Pam. Do something productive._ His cell phone was still in hand, Alec's name highlighted.

It sounded like he was going to have to leave a voicemail and he was wondering what exactly he'd say when Alec picked up, sounding hurried and out of breath. "Hello?"

"Hey man, it's Jim. You busy?"

"No, no. I mean, kind of."

"Ah. With somebody? I can call you back-"

"No, it's fine. Here, let me—" there was the sound of a door opening and closing, as well as footsteps echoing down a tiled hallway. "Sorry, dude. Yeah, I'm with this chick but I don't know if I'm really into her, I was kind of looking for a way out of hanging out with her, you know?"

Jim felt the corners of his mouth quirk down in a mixture of confusion and amusement. "Uh...what were you doing that had you so out of breath?"

On the other end of the line, Alec scoffed. "Yeah right, perv. So what's up? Already jonesin' for another bike weekend, right? Me too."

"Yeah, that sounds fun. But no, I had a veterinary related question for you."

"Oh yeah? Thinking about a dog or something?"

"No, I just...uh, well, what do you know about black bears?"

Jim could tell Alec was confused. "Black bears? What do you want to know about black bears for?"

 _Shit._ He didn't have a good answer for that. "Oh, um, my coworker has a thing about bears, and uh, I want to...I want to play a joke on him?" He could hear the hesitation in his voice and hoped Alec wouldn't call him on it.

"Pretty weird, dude. But whatever. My school isn't big on exotics, mostly just small animals. I don't know much, man, sorry."

"Do you think you could find some stuff out for me?"

"Like what?"

 _Like is it going to kill me to have bear DNA spliced into mine? Is my heart going to explode because of some weird bear heart condition?_ He couldn't very well ask for any of those things, at least not without opening a Pandora's box of questions. What the hell was he doing calling Alec anyway? Jim ground the palm of his hand into his eye socket and searched around for something plausible to say. He couldn't tell the truth, but maybe he could borrow from it. "Oh, well, on my hike yesterday I heard some people talking about a rehab facility for injured animals? I heard there was a bear there. Just made me curious about general bear stuff is all." He was surprised at how quickly he was able to come up with a lie and hoped it sounded convincing.

"Rehab facility? Where?"

"Near the Thousand Steps trail."

"There's not an animal rehab facility over there. At least not one with the infrastructure to hold a bear. You must have misheard."

Jim's heart started racing at the same time it sank into his stomach. No rehab facility meant that the men who crashed onto the path and tranquilized the bear had been hiding something. Thinking back, Jim couldn't remember seeing a logo or anything embroidered on their hats or shirts, just weird dark colored digital camo. He'd doubted their story a little when he heard it, but now he knew they'd been lying.

"Jim? You there?"

He jumped, having forgotten that he was on the phone. His mouth was dry when he opened it to speak, and his words came out a little cracked. "Yeah, sorry." He cleared his throat, hoping it would make him sound more normal. "Yeah, I must have heard wrong."

"Sorry man. If you ever want to know about dogs and cats, I'm your guy. But look, I should probably get back to what I was doing before."

"You mean who, right?"

"Fuck off, man. I'll let you know when the next biking weekend is."

"Sounds good. Thanks."

Jim tossed his phone on the bed and put his hands behind his head, thinking. Calling Alec hadn't been a total waste of time. He might not have learned if he was now prone to a certain type of bear cancer or something, but he did learn that the men he'd encountered on the trail hadn't been entirely truthful.

But where were they from, if not a wildlife rehabilitation facility? A shady government operation? Illegal animal research? Terrorist organization? He remembered how serious the one man had looked when he told him—warned him?—not to say anything. He'd also mentioned a press release, and Jim made a mental note to check the news in the coming weeks in an attempt to find more information. And maybe he should do some more research, try to see what government offices were nearby the scene of the attack—

His thoughts were interrupted by the slamming of the front door and the sound of someone running up the stairs. The first thought that popped into his mind was that the men from yesterday had found him. He glanced around his room for something to defend himself with but came up short, and then decided it didn't matter anyway. If he _was_ Bearman, or whatever, he didn't need a weapon. And as he thought that, he felt a strength unrivaled by anything else he'd experienced before surge into his veins, at the same time that every hair on his body stood on end. It was like instinct took over; like his body knew he was in danger and was prepared to defend itself. He heard a low sound, almost pulsing in its nature, emanate from the back of his throat. He was ready.

Outside his open door, he saw Mark rush into the bathroom across the hall. Actually, he smelled Mark before he saw him—a mix of sweat, rancid food, and the worst public bathroom he'd ever been in. Mark barely had enough time to get to his knees and throw the lid of the toilet open before he was retching into it. After a few violent looking heaves, he collapsed to one side and leaned against the bathtub, grey in the face and perspiration dotting his forehead. The stench of the sick in the toilet hit Jim then, and he almost retched himself.

"Dude, flush!" He managed to get out between gags.

Mark shot him a hostile look as he pushed the lever. "Sorry, didn't realize that puking my guts out would affect you that much."

Jim waved his arm in front of his face in an attempt to waft away the smell. "I'm sorry, really. I didn't think it'd help if you had to watch me vomit, too." Mark didn't say anything, just glared at Jim in a sickly kind of way. "What's wrong? Want me to run to the pharmacy and get anything?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind. Pepto, maybe, and a ginger ale." Jim was already grabbing his keys and wallet and shrugging on a hoodie. As he left his room and turned towards the stairs, Mark spoke again, barely loud enough for Jim to hear. "I should have listened about that orange chicken."

After Jim got back from the pharmacy and made sure Mark was still alive, he made two boxes of instant macaroni and sequestered himself into his room. As he ate, he thought about doing some more research, but the thought of it was daunting and exhausting and he had no idea where to even start.

Instead, he glanced over the still open window of his earlier chat with Pam. It put a smile on his face that he let linger for once, relishing in the fact that she was bored without him and couldn't wait for him to come back to work. It didn't mean anything, he knew, but it still made him feel good.

But. He couldn't dwell on that. So he clicked the little red X in the corner and watched it disappear. He should take a lesson from that, he thought briefly. Try to make his burgeoning feelings shrink away as quickly as a chat window. He thought in it for a moment before he realized he was dwelling, so he pulled up one of his earlier Word documents, the one detailing things to test. He deleted the item about calling Alec and added "research bear sounds. pulsing roar thing?" as well as "facilities of any type near thousand steps: research, government, etc."

He saved that document and pulled up the other one. The evidence, as it were, had certainly started to stack up in favor of what he had dubbed "The Bearman Theory." He updated his list with the fact that he'd definitely been right about the bad Chinese food, smelling Mark before he'd seen him, and his involuntary response to a perceived threat. After he finished, he sat back in his chair and looked at the computer. He stayed that way for a long time, so long that his eyes glazed over and he no longer saw the words on the screen.

When he finally snapped out of his thoughts, it was dark outside. A day of physical and mental exhaustion (plus a giant pot of macaroni) had taken a toll on him: he was tired. He took one last look at "The Bearman Theory" before shutting down his computer. He didn't want to think about any of that anymore. He just wanted to sleep.

After checking on Mark (who was sprawled out in his bed, surrounded by saltine sleeves and ginger ale bottles, sound asleep), he crawled into bed himself. It usually took him a while to fall asleep, but it seemed as though becoming part bear had at least one wholly good side effect in that he passed out immediately.

He dreamed, though. A dream similar to the one that he'd had before, in which he was running full speed through a forest. This time he wasn't running _from_ something. He was running _to_ something. Or someone. Definitely someone, or at least the _idea_ of someone. Someone warm and bright and happy, surrounded by strawberry blonde and pink and blue, like watercolors.

In his sleep, Jim slid one arm underneath his spare pillow and hugged it to his body. He dreamed on, unaware of the images playing in his mind, but smiling all the same.


	4. Discovery

He overslept and wound up being late to work by almost half an hour. It took a monumental effort to drag himself out of bed, but he managed somehow. Breakfast was hurried and he didn't eat enough of it, but he figured he could clean out the candy supply at reception and get the dual benefit of extra calories and talking to Pam.

She wasn't at her desk when he finally did make it to work, though. That was disappointing. He hoped that she wasn't sick or something, that he wouldn't have to go the entire day without seeing her, when he saw a tiny box expertly crafted out of cardstock on his desk, a yellow sticky note on top.

 _Jim-Don't even ask how long I spent fishing these out. You're lucky I had a slow day yesterday, all things considered.-Pam_

The paper box was filled to the brim with buttered popcorn jelly beans. He smiled broadly to himself, not bothering to try and hide it since she wasn't there to see it anyway. He told himself it didn't mean anything, just a friendly gesture from one (best?) friend to another, but he carefully affixed the sticky note to the inside of a desk drawer, next to the handful of others that she'd given him. Pathetic, maybe, but he couldn't help himself.

He was pulling his digital camera out of his bag so he could upload the pictures he took for Pam when Dwight exited the kitchen and stalked over to his and Jim's desk clump. "Well well well, look who finally made it into work today." Jim realized with a start that he could smell Dwight-not in a BO kind of way, but that he could pick up individual notes the way a sommelier could distinguish the different tastes in a glass of wine. Wet dirt, coffee, mothballs, what was most likely manure. It was unnerving and weird and was this his life now? Smelling all his coworkers? He shook his head and tried to block the scent from his nose as he responded to Dwight, who was now eyeing him suspiciously.

"Don't know what you're talking about. I was here before you were, remember?"

Dwight looked momentarily taken aback, then glared at Jim from behind his thick glasses. "No you weren't."

"Yep," he replied, plugging in his camera and saving a handful of landscape photos to his desktop. "Maybe you should see a doctor if your short term memory is that bad, Dwight."

Dwight scoffed and turned away. Jim made a tallymark on his mental **JIM V DWIGHT** scoreboard (the score was decidedly in his favor) and opened up his email.

 _From: Jim Halpert [jimhalpert ]_  
 _To: Pamela Beesly [pamelabeesly ]_  
 _Subject: Thanks_  
 _Attachments: , ,_

 _Beesly-_

 _I knew you were lying about eating all the buttered popcorn. Thank you. Great craftsmanship on that little box, by the way. It will earn a place of honor in my top drawer, storing my paper clips. After I eat all the jelly beans, obviously. Anyway, I have something for you, too. I took some nature photos for you over the weekend. I remember you saying you were painting landscapes now? I thought you'd like these. I'm not the best photographer, so I hope they turned out okay._

 _Haven't seen you yet this morning. Haven't seen Michael, either, for that matter. Hope he's not boring you to death somewhere, but I bet he is. Can't wait to hear all about it._

 _See you soon-_

 _Jim_

He clicked send just as the main office door opened. Michael walked in and turned sharply into his office without acknowledging anybody, a look of extreme annoyance on his face. Jim caught the faint smell of perspiration, stale coffee, hair gel, and cheap drug store cologne. Dwight was out of his chair immediately and the door to Michael's office slammed shut just as Pam walked in. Jim watched as her eyes immediately went to his desk and couldn't stop from feeling pleased with himself as her face lit up. She tossed the legal pad she was carrying onto the reception desk, not even looking to see where it landed, and all but skipped over to Jim's desk.

"Thank god you're back. You don't even want to know what Michael just had me doing." He was immediately overwhelmed with how _good_ she smelled: Earl Grey tea, Dial soap, fabric softener (he recognized it as the same kind he uses, which makes him smile), something sweet and crisp (he'd later come to find out through much trial and error at an overwhelmingly pungent store in the mall that it's her lotion, Country Apple from Bath and Body Works). Yeah, maybe being able to smell Michael and Dwight and everybody else from a distance was weird and unsettling, but if it meant he got to be surrounded by the intoxicating scent of Pam, he'd take it. And maybe that was weird, too, but he couldn't help it. He smiled up at her, glad that she came to talk to him, glad that she was happy he's back, just glad in general.

"I won't ask, then. But hey, thanks for the warm welcome." He gestured to the box on his desk and found it incredibly endearing that her cheeks flushed just the tiniest bit. "It's great."

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other in a way that seemed almost playful, if not a little bit shy. "Yeah, well. Um, but something was said about a gift for me? That was my main motivation."

He inclined his head towards her computer. "Check your email."

She grinned down at him, all bright and shiny and with her tongue poking out. He grinned back, knowing for all the world that he probably looked like a lovesick doofus, but he couldn't quite find it in himself to care. As she walked back to her desk Dwight came barreling out of Michael's office and the clean, fresh, heady scent of Pam was wafted away and replaced by the somewhat offensive smell of Dwight.

Jim sighed. If this was part of being Bearman or Manbear or whatever the hell he's going to call himself, it was going to take some getting used to.

Next to him, Dwight pulled out a moleskin notebook and turned his attention to Jim. "I'll need to know where you were during your absences from work so that you can appropriately be docked a personal day, sick day, or be issued a demerit for unexcused absences."

"This isn't high school, Dwight. You can't give me a demerits. And time off gets authorized through Michael anyway, so. Not your job."

"I am assistant regional-"

"To the."

Dwight slammed his notebook down on his desk, much to Jim's amusement. "Fine. Don't tell me where you were. I don't care where you were." Jim unsuccessfully tried to stifle a laugh, which drew a sharp look from his desk mate. "Stop making noises. I'm busy."

"Don't look busy to me."

"Shut up. I have to check the forums." Jim tuned Dwight out, not much caring to hear about whatever forum he was checking (beets, probably) and turned his focus to the paperwork and messages that had piled up for him over his absence. That was, until, something Dwight muttered under his breath caught Jim's undivided attention. "... bear sighting over the weekend and some weird circumstances. The forums haven't been this active since-"

"Bear sighting?" Dwight's head snapped towards Jim and looked at him questioningly. Jim cleared his throat and tried to look natural. "I mean, that sounds cool. I didn't know we even had bears in Scranton."

"There wasn't a sighting in Scranton, _idiot._ It was in Huntingdon County."

 _Same place. Same bear, probably. Same weird circumstances?_ He cleared his throat again. "Oh, right. Of course. Uh, what do you mean about weird circumstances?"

"Why do you care?"

"I don't! I don't. Just, uh, curious. It sounds interesting." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Pam's head tilt in confusion, obviously overhearing his conversation with Dwight and not buying it, either. "It's not very often you hear about a bear sighting in Pennsylvania, right?"

"Come on, Jim. Pennsylvania is home to a substantial population of black bears. If you joined the forums," and here he raised his voice so that everyone in the office could hear what he had to say "as I have recommend that you _all_ do _multiple_ times, you would know that."

Jim nodded once. "Right. Uh, which forum again?"

"The Pennslylvania Bear Forums, duh?"

 _Of course. What else would it be?_ "Cool. Thanks, buddy."

"Not your buddy."

The work that had accumulated for Jim was quickly forgotten. Instead, to his utter disbelief, he pulled up his web browser and did a search for The Pennsylvania Bear Forums. He found them quickly enough and was halfway through creating an account when he heard the chime indicating that he had a new email.

 _From: Pamela Beesly [pamelabeesly ]_  
 _To: Jim Halpert [jimhalpert ]_  
 _Subject: Thanks! And what?_

 _Jim,_

 _The photos are gorgeous. That view is stunning. I'd like to see it myself sometime, but until then these pictures are perfect. You did a great job, they'll be perfect to work from._

 _But am I *really* overhearing you talk to Dwight about bears? Are you okay? You sure you're not sick? I'm worried about you, Jim. Is Dwight holding you hostage somehow? Look over to my desk and blink twice if you need help. I'm here for you._

 _-Pam_

His hand curled over his mouth reflexively, a conditioned response to trying to hide how big his smile gets when it's caused by something Pam says or does. He looked over to the reception area and blinked slowly, three times. Pam giggled behind her desk and he shrugged before allowing his smile to spread across his face without hiding it. The phone rang then and Pam's job description got in the way of their over the desk banter and Jim got back to-astonishingly-signing up for the bear forums.

He scrolled through the stickied threads until he found one that looked promising: **BEAR SIGHTING NEAR THOUSAND STEPS!** He clicked it and began to scan the most recent posts.

 **ursusamongus:** What's interesting to me, though, isn't the bear. I mean, we all know what a bear sighting looks like, exciting as it is. What about the way the bear was reportedly acting? What about the reports of the men looking for it? Anything about that?  
 **DwightKShrute:** In a separate thread, a user described their encounter and did mention something about men. I'll quote the text here: _"i was at my mom's farm out in rural huntingdon co and found evidence of a bear being on the property. there's been bears out there before and it's whatever, but then my mom's closest neighbor came down and told us that he'd heard some men down around the fence line acting like they were looking for something. the neighbor said he snuck down there to listen in and couldn't hear much, but there was a group of guys in fatigues talking about tracking and subduing. weird, right?"_  
 **PAWS862:** I was on the Thousand Steps trail this weekend and actually saw the tranquilized bear. It was amazing, that thing was massive. There definitely were men there, but I couldn't get a read on where they were from. They didn't look like GFC guys, that's for sure. No logos or anything like that. What do you guys think?  
 **DwightKShrute:** More information is required before we make an assessment.

Jim sat back so that he could absorb what he'd just read. As weird as it was, he didn't feel quite as alone. He didn't think anyone else had been attacked, of sorts, but at least there were others who had encountered the men and were asking the same kinds of questions that he was. After a quick internal debate, he scrolled to the bottom of the page and clicked on the link to make a new post.

 **BearMan1078:** first post. am i doing this right? anyway, i also saw the bear, right after they tranquilized it. i saw the men, too, but didn't talk to them. they seemed really official and i overheard them tell another hiker that they worked for a rehab program and that they'd put a press release out after they got everything under control. i haven't seen anything about that, have any of you?

He pressed _enter_ and sat back in his chair, wondering what in the world his life had come to. If someone had told him Saturday night that by Tuesday morning he'd be discerning the individual notes of Pam's (and Dwight's and Michael's and everybody else's, but mostly Pam's) scents and giving himself superhero-esque monikers and posting on bear forums, he would have said that that person was certifiably insane. But here he was, hoping for another chance to get a whiff of fabric softener and nervously tapping his fingers against his keyboard as he waited for a response.

It seemed dumb to sit around and wait, so he minimized the window and finally turned his attention to the stack of papers in front of him. For once in his career-nope, not career, job-at Dunder Mifflin, he poured himself into his work.

After lunch (which he ate with Pam and managed to feel only marginally creepy for breathing deeply so he could burn her smell into the olfactory center of brain, but he couldn't help it because she just smelled _so good_ ), he settled back in at his desk and pulled up the forum window. He hit refresh and was pleasantly surprised to see several new posts.

 **PAWS862:** Welcome, BearMan! We're always happy to have a new member. Thanks for the new information, this whole situation just seems really strange. To my knowledge, there's not a wildlife rehab near there, at least not one that a bear could have escaped from. I'll do a search for recent press releases, but I haven't seen anything.  
 **DwightKShrute:** Bears can run up to 35 miles per hour so it's possible that it could have escaped from a different facility.  
 **ursusamongus:** IDK, Dwight. It still seems pretty fishy. What wildlife rehab that's equipped to house black bears would have to track one for that long? My bet is that it was being held at somewhere that doesn't usually hold bears.  
 **DaHibernator:** it was tranqued on the 1k steps trail?  
 **PAWS862:** Hibernator, that's right.  
 **DaHibernator:** i leave near there. my hood backs up 2 this wooded area thats fenced off w/ like a 12 foot fence w/ razor wire the top. once my buddies n i decided 2 see if we could figure out what it was n all we were able 2 see was some huge building behind all the trees n shit n a big gate w/ a bunch of ppl guarding it. we didnt see guns but they prlly had them. they looked srs  
 **DwightKShrute:** DaHibernator, as assistant moderator of this forum I'm going to have to insist once again that you make your posts a little more legible. You're looking at a week long mute if you can't fix your grammar and spelling.  
 **PAWS862:** Dwight, we've talked about this. You don't have mute privileges.  
 **DaHibernator:** yeah so suck it nerd  
 **ursusamongus:** Hibernator, was there any signage or anything? Any idea what the building is used for?  
 **DaHibernator:** nope. some nutjob n my town swears that its a secret research place but hes crazy so nobody pays attention to him  
 **PAWS862:** Hmm. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? BearMan, I looked for a press release but haven't come up with anything yet. Make sure you keep checking back in, I have a feeling that this case is going to keep to forums hopping for a while! :-)

Jim's mind was reeling. Could really be possible that the bear had escaped from some clandestine government research facility? The more he thought about it, the more it made some kind of sense. After all, a regular old bear bite didn't grant what Jim was hesitant to call superpowers (he was calling them that anyway, for lack of a better term), at least not to his knowledge. What if the men and others like them had been doing research on the bear, making it radioactive or injecting it with whatever it was they gave Captain America or hypnotizing it or something? How else could he possibly explain what was going on? The strength, the enhanced athletic ability, the sense of smell-

As if on cue, he was suddenly overwhelmed by his new favorite scent. Pam was walking past his desk on her way to the kitchen, and he let himself be calmed by her presence, as fleeting as it was. And that wasn't something new, he'd been that way since pretty much the day he'd met her. It was just another thing that was heightened now, the effect she had on him. He sat back in his chair with his eyes closed, allowing himself to relax and think only about cardigans and Keds and Snuggle fabric softener and buttered popcorn jelly beans. He only snapped out of it when Pam walked past him again, a new smell accompanying her. One that wasn't near as pleasant as the rest.

Jim straightened up and looked over at reception. Pam was stirring the contents of a yogurt container, the kind with the fruit on the bottom. She was so absorbed in thoroughly mixing up her mixed berries that she didn't notice him leave his desk and head to hers, not until he leaned across the countertop, his hands dangling over the edge. At this distance, it was obvious to Jim that the yogurt had expired and he wanted to prevent another situation like the one with Mark and the orange chicken. But how weird was it to just out and out say "hey, your yogurt smells bad?" when it very clearly didn't to her? Pam was looking up at him expectantly, though, so he better say something. He smiled at her (hopefully not awkwardly but probably so) and pointed to her yogurt.

"This might sound weird. And there's no reason for me to know this. But...that mixed berry yogurt you're about to eat has expired."

Pam looked at him in confusion, the lifted the container to check the expiry date printed on the bottom. When she looked at him again, it was in shock. "Wow, you're right. Almost six months out of date. How'd you know that?"

He shrugged. "I know my yogurt, I guess."

"Yeah, I guess so. Thanks, Jim."

"No problem, Beesly. Hey, since I ruined your snack, want to split a bag of chips with me in the break room?"

Her smile was radiant, or so it seemed to Jim. It definitely wasn't conducive to his not-wanting-to-fall-further-for-the-engaged-receptionist, but he just couldn't help himself when it came to her. As they sat together, a bag of french onion chips between them, he didn't think about the bear or the men or the alleged weird building, not once.

He just thought about Pam's smile, and how to make her do it again.


	5. Acceptance

Surprisingly enough, the next several months flew by. Jim settled in to his newfound strength and speed as well as confirmed that his heightened abilities extended to both climbing and swimming. His somewhat befuddled eye doctor told him that he had 20/10 eyesight, maybe even better. And after a little bit of trial and error, he figured out how to turn the bear off and on, so to speak. After that he wasn't constantly overwhelmed by smells and sounds or perceived threats that turned out to be nothing other than the ancient air conditioning kicking on at the office or the garage door opening at home. He stayed on high alert, though, always watching for any sign that the men who had recovered the bear were coming after him.

Despite that, it became normal to be only halfway cognizant of the bear in his brain, as though it was hibernating off in a corner somewhere. It would raise its head and sniff around on occasion, mostly whenever Pam walked by and he got a whiff of Country Apple lotion or Earl Grey tea. There were a few nights at Poor Richards where things got rowdy and he actually let loose a few aggressive, pulsing growls before the bartender stepped in and diffused things before they got out of hand. Other than that, though, he settled into a routine that was similar to the one he had pre-bear, with the only difference being that he had to make sure not to close a door too hard or carry too many boxes of paper at once.

Jim checked the Pennsylvania Bear Forums fairly frequently at first, but talk about the bear sighting died down after a few weeks. It became cursory then, just a quick glance every few days to see if a press release ever did come out (nope) or if more information about the nondescript but fiercely guarded building became available (it didn't). Until, that is, a thread nearly halfway down the page caught his eye one day close to six months after the incident: **ILLEGAL ANIMAL RESEARCH ON BLACK BEARS IN HUNTINGDON COUNTY!** Instantly curious (and a little nervous), Jim clicked.

 **DaHibernator:** u guys remember a while back wen i talkd ab a weird place near my town? it got raided ovr the wknd, it WAS a secret research place, they had a fuckton of animals n there n bunch of messed up shit  
 **ursusamongus:** Like what, Hibernator? I remember that thread. Do you think it was connected to the bear attack/tranquilizing?  
 **PAWS862:** Hibernator, what town did this happen in? I still never saw a press release and I can't find any news articles about it!  
 **DwightKShrute:** DaHibernator, consider yourself officially reprimanded. We're all here waiting for you to give us more information and you seem incapable of holding up your end of the bargain.  
 **PAWS862:** Dammit, Dwight! Once again, you don't have those types of privileges! I'm muting you for a few days, see if you can't calm down some.  
 **ursusamongus:** Any more news, Hibernator?  
 **yogibooboo23:** new here, but i know where hibernator is talking about. It was all really hush hush or whatever, i only know details because my uncle was contracted out to do some repairs out there. he had to sign all kinds of forms and stuff. anyway he was there they got raided. police or fbi or somebody came and took everybody out in handcuffs. they were doing some bad shit in there, radiation and live dissections and stuff. my uncle said it made him sick to his stomach.  
 **PAWS862:** Wow. That's intense, yogi. Do you know anything else?  
 **DaHibernator:** sorry, i was gone 4 a few days. thks 4 muting douchehole dwight paws. but ya wut yogi said. i heard that it was som gvmt project that went rogue n it got shut down. yogi is right they all went away in cop cars. me n my buds watched from the woods.  
 **ursusamongus:** holy crap. well that solves the mystery of the weird guys and the tranqued bear. any idea what happened to the animals afterwards?  
 **yogibooboo23:** idk. it makes me sad to think about them all being mistreated. i hope they went somewhere safe.  
 **yogibooboo23:** is anybody still in this thread? been a week or so since the last post. i took my dog to the vet today and overhead the vet talking about all the animals the shelter got in. it sounded like the ones from the facility all got placed, the small ones at least. they definitely had a bear, though, but i have no idea where it ended up. i hope its okay.  
 **PAWS862:** Thanks for the update, yogi! We appreciate it. Let us know if you hear anything else.  
 **DwightKSchrute:** Yes, the team here at the Pennsylvania Bear Forums thanks you.  
 **PAWS863:** Dwight, for the last time. Give it a rest.

The thread died after that, and Jim spent a few days digesting the information he'd gleaned from it. It was surreal to think that he'd been right: he'd been bitten by a bear that was likely radioactive and had escaped from a secret research facility that had tenuous but possible ties to the government. It explained a lot. It explained all of it, actually. And it made him breathe a little easier-he'd been halfway looking over his shoulder for Stephens and the other two men that had come after the bear ever since the day the attack happened. It made sense that they were part of a clandestine and quite possibly illegal research operation. That day on the trail, they'd seemed secretive and dangerous and Jim had been worried that they'd come after him. Knowing what he knew now, he considered himself extremely lucky that they didn't cart him away immediately and lock him up alongside the bear. It didn't matter now, though-they were in jail.

Once the shadow of the three men had passed, Jim found it even easier to cope with his abilities and how they changed him. Life went, similarly to how it would have without the extra chest hair and enhanced sense of smell. He spent time with his family and friends, made a comfortable if not completely self-actualized living at sales, cultivated new friendships.

He fell in love.

Hard.

He spent years with a longing ache deep inside his chest, looking for meaning or some kind of sign that he wasn't alone in his feelings, only to immediately explain them away when they were found. It became the best kind of torture, seeing the woman of his dreams from 9 to 5 five days a week, hearing her call him her 'best friend,' making her laugh and comforting her when she needed it. It was enough to just be near her, for a while.

But then it became so tortuous that he knew he couldn't do it anymore. Not without shriveling into a husk of the man that he was, because every interaction with Pam hurt a little more than the one before it, until hearing her laugh became equal parts the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard and a lot like a stab in the gut. After she and Roy set a wedding date, he knew it was only a matter of time before he had to cut his losses and move on.

So, he did. Or he made plans to, at least. Those plans didn't include confessing to Pam that he was in love with her, but somehow that happened anyway. The best moment of his life-her kissing him back-was quickly followed by the worst-her confirmation that she was still marrying Roy-and he left Scranton, because what choice did he have?

Life after that was difficult to say the least. The bear in him became restless and angry, hungry for food that it wasn't getting and sleep that it was denied. The muscles he'd gained from more frequent running and swimming wasted away. Jim became the husk that he'd been so worried he'd become, devastated by the loss of Pam in his life and the never-ending images of her as Roy Anderson's wife. He dragged himself to work, his new obligations as Assistant Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin Stamford the only thing that got him out of his bare apartment.

It got better, though, albeit slowly. When he found out that Pam had called off her wedding and left him in the dark for almost three months, he got a little bit angry. Even after years of being her best friend and his parking lot confession, she didn't think to clue him in on such a huge happening in her life. She'd told him everything else, so why not this? The only conclusion he could come to was that she never saw him as anything other than a friend. She didn't tell him because she didn't want to give him false hope.

The realization that Pam didn't want to be with him, even now that she was free from the leaden weight around the ring finger of her left hand, spurred him to move on. He spent some time oscillating between anger and sadness, which slowly gave way to forgiveness and acceptance. Pam didn't owe him anything, and that was fine. He owed it to _himself_ to pull himself out of the dark hole he'd sunk into it.

And he did, mostly. He started working out, regaining muscles that had atrophied and then some. For the first time since he'd started at Dunder Mifflin, he threw himself into his work and excelled at it. Maybe it was that Stamford had a much bigger market or maybe it was that he had more responsibilities, but either way he found himself actually _enjoying_ his job. His life became different and a little sad, still, but happy. Happy-ish, at least.

Things continued that way for a while. The bear stayed quiet, except for once when Jim came across three teenagers beating up a fourth and found himself breaking up the fight before he even knew what he was doing. Other than that it would occasionally perk up, mostly out of curiosity about the people around him. It was this curiosity that one day won Jim over, and he left work that day with his olfactory sensibilities overwhelmed with the sharp scent of Old Spice and bike chain grease (his boss Josh), an abundant and overwhelming amount of men's cologne and hair products ("Here, Tuna, try some of my new Tom Ford. Pricey, though, so not too much," courtesy of salesman Andy Bernard"), and the faint scent of dry cleaning chemicals covered up by something light and sweet and just the tiniest tang of salt and vinegar (Karen, who sat behind him). The bear turned its nose up at all of them, and Jim found himself wishing for the comforting notes of Snuggle fabric softener and Dial soap.

Overall, though, he settled into his new normal. It included soft shell crab and weekly games of Call of Duty. He couldn't quite shake the little bit of emptiness he still felt, but he learned to live with it.

And then things went into total upheaval. After a dramatic day of wondering and worrying who might be transferring from Scranton to Stamford, it was revealed that Jim and several others would be moving to Pennsylvania. It happened quickly, the merger, and when Jim walked in only to be greeted with a hug and the the heady essence of everything Pam, he felt as though nothing had changed.

It had, though. It had changed a lot. _He'd_ changed, evolved even, and he told Pam as much that first day back in the break room. It wasn't a lie, not really, but he still felt guilty about it. But Pam had made her choice back in May, and then again in June. There was nothing else to be done about it.

He made things official with Karen that night. Maybe not _offical_ official, but official enough. They went out for drinks after work and made plans for dinner over the weekend. When she smiled, bigger than brighter than he'd seen her smile before, he felt a pang that he couldn't quite place. She'd just reached across the table and covered his hand with hers when a story on the evening news caught his attention.

"A Lackawanna county woman was found strangled in her home early this morning. Police were called to the Gleason Road address at 6:40 AM, when the victim's roommate came home from an overnight hospital shift. As of now, there are no definitive suspects, but citizens are encouraged to call the police hotline to report any suspicious activity or pertinent information. This is the third seemingly random death by strangulation in the last two months, and though police are hesitant to link them together, many are wondering if this is the work of the man or woman who has now become known as the Scranton Strangler."


End file.
